I'm loath to even spend time on this jerk, particularly as I'm busy working on a couple of deadlines about things and people that actually matter. But I've got to take just a moment to flag the details on the latest victim of convicted federal criminal and Rightwing creep James O'Keefe and his employer/pimp/propagandist Andrew Breitbart. See Bob Braun's column at yesterday's Star-Ledger for the full details, but in short, the latest victim of the continuing O'Keefe/Breitbart assault on decency in this nation was a New Jersey special education teacher named Alissa Ploshnick.

In 1997 Ploshnick was lauded by President Clinton after risking her life to save those of a dozen school kids in Passaic where "She threw herself in front of a careening van to protect her students and landed in the hospital with broken ribs, a fractured wrist, a badly bruised pelvis and glass cuts in her eyes."

As Braun notes, "She could have died." This year, however, she was lured into another deceptively edited, hidden video "exposé" created by the criminal and serial liar O'Keefe...

As usual, the video was hyped by Breitbart (and his Fox "News" pals, naturally). And, also as usual, the words of Ploshnick as heard in the edited video were taken out of context to appear far more nefarious than they actually were. All that, after a seemingly nice person purchased her a drink at a bar where she was attending a conference of the New Jersey Education Association to learn more about special-education law. The guy then encouraged her to give her opinions on the teacher's union as he was secretly taping.

NJ Gov. Chris Christie has lauded the video, in that it has helped him in his own political attack against NJ's teacher's union.

Just as Shirley Sherrod and innocent ACORN employees before her, Ploshnick was disciplined after the release of the video as officials scrambled to save face before all the facts were known. At least she was only suspended, as opposed to fired.

"I felt like I was raped," Ploshnick told Braun. She also tells the columnist that "she spent $9,000 of her own money on school supplies for her students, made sure a child in her class made his dental appointments by bringing him there and was just asked to be a godparent to the child of another student."

All just more collateral damage in the O'Keefe/Breitbart/Fox "News" war on America, of course.

Kudos to Braun for, finally, describing O'Keefe as what he actually is: a "pretend journalist and admitted criminal." Writes Braun:

O’Keefe made Ploshnick, a teacher who saved the lives of children, an unwitting star in a web-based movie, a phony exposé of nothing but the cynicism of ideologically driven pseudo-journalists. All O’Keefe managed to do was ruin the reputation of a woman who should be honored as a hero — and was, not only by Clinton but also by Montel Williams and Oprah Winfrey, a fan of Gov. Chris Christie’s.

Wait, something's wrong here. The woman in the photo is white. Did O'Keefe and Breitbart think she was black? Did she save some black kids? Does she teach in a predominantly black school? What's the black angle? O'Keefe and Breitbart are professional racists, so I know there's a black angle here somewhere.

Outside of this incident, can you cite an instance of anybody ever "being held accountable" for words said in a bar? Or are you just trying to prove how unwilling you are to deal in reality? I'm guessing the latter.

Trying to make Conservatives feel bad about doing dirty things is like spitting in the wind. Reagan was a rat for the US government in Hollywood. Sarah Palin quit a governor job and all the people who donated to her or voted for her to make $2million a year at Fox.

Conservatives are terrible or greedy people so they must tear down liberals to take you down to their level. They cannot compete with liberals on even fields so they take steroids or lie or anything to win.

There's an easy solution: don't flap your gums about things you shouldn't be discussing with a stranger in a bar, or anywhere else.

Granted, O'Keefe is a tool and Breitbart is worse. But painting this lady as a victim for running her mouth about things she shouldn't is stupid and one of the biggest problems we face today which is a complete lack of personal responsibility. She willingly said the things she said.

It doesn't matter if she's a Special Ed. teacher, or if she got a phone call from President Clinton. Today she's a moron.

What did she say David? Never mind, doesn't really matter anyway except that she did use (found at another source) the "N" word.

She was reprimanded at work for her comments, that's how I can speak authoritatively about it.

Finally, I think this Ms. Ploshnick should go spend an afternoon or evening sitting in on a group therapy session for women who have actually been raped. Maybe explain to them how this crap is the same...

I bet she thinks twice before she starts spilling her guts to a stranger in a bar again.

Kudos for attempting a dialog with the wingtard nuts. Re comment # 14 from WingnutSteve. Have you or would you like the first hand experience of being raped yourself. If you like I am sure that someone you know could provide it to you.

What did she say David? Never mind, doesn't really matter anyway except that she did use (found at another source) the "N" word.

She was reprimanded at work for her comments, that's how I can speak authoritatively about it.

Yes. Just as Shirley Sherrod was "reprimanded at work" when her comments were dishonestly taken out of context and published by Breitbart and Fox, and just as ACORN employees were "reprimanded at work" when their comments were secretly taped and dishonestly taken out of context and published by Breitbart and Fox.

Of course, what you fail to mention --- and what O'Keefe didn't bother to make clear --- was that her use of "the 'N' word" was in describing what someone else had said. Still, she was the one that was punished for it, and you're cool with that.

The comments were played by O'Keefe (and Breitbart and Fox) as if she had done something wrong in relating this story to someone in a bar, in what she thought was a private conversation, only to see it played over and again on Fox "News". If you don't understand how violative that is, it's likely because you have no idea what happens when Fox turns on it's hate machine. (Here's just one example of the dozens of direct death threats and attacks that we received when Fox did the same thing to VelvetRevolution.us).

Since I'll take you at your word that you honestly have no clue about how dishonest the out-of-context attack on Ploshnick was (and how opportunistic Chris Christie was in further villifying this private citizen) here's a short blog item that describes the scam that you haven't bothered to acquaint yourself with before "shooting of your mouth" about such things here.

That you are blaming the victim here, Ploshnick, mirrors precisely what happens so often in the case of rape. That you claim to know two people who went through that, yet fail to see how the cases are paralleled suggests you are either dishonest, or clueless about that which you speak.

I bet she thinks twice before she starts spilling her guts to a stranger in a bar again.

I bet she does too. Since apparently it's now appropriate, by your non-existent standards (and those similarly non-existent from O'Keefe, Breitbart and Fox) to secretly tape anything any private citizen says in a private conversation and put it on national television. No matter how out of context that comment may be, no matter that no laws were broken or even suggested as much.

I guess I'll just need to get your actual picture, your actual name, and a few comments out of context and put it on the front page of about 100 websites or so before you can even begin to understand what this woman was put through after having committed no crimes, nor even ethical lapses.

Speaking of clueless, you also wrote this:

There's no chill on free speech anywhere in my comment.

That, after variously writing:

There's an easy solution: don't flap your gums about things you shouldn't be discussing with a stranger in a bar, or anywhere else.
...
running her mouth about things she shouldn't is stupid and one of the biggest problems we face today which is a complete lack of personal responsibility.

No, no "chill on free speech" at all there. Just becareful what you say in private to someone, since it might end up out of context on the largest cable news channel in the country and you may be fired from your job, suspended without pay, and face thousands of death threats to you and your family after having done nothing wrong in the slightest. So talk to no one. Not "chilling" at all.

It's all her fault, because she was "flap[ping] her gums" about things she "shouldn't be discussing".

You haven't described what she "shouldn't be discussing", just that she shouldn't. Because you say so. And because Fox "News" might put it on TV.

Incredibly, I think you actually believe the crap you write here, though I can't believe you actually bother to think it through before typing it out.

Oh man Stevenut! After having your posts thoroughly dismantled and your reasoning destroyed in the plainest english possible, you come right back with more or less the same thing. But do you stop there? No! You completely misinterpret the comparison Brad makes between what happens to victims of rape. As if he said anything REMOTELY like the crimes themselves were the same thing. Your posts hurts my brain.

The "comparison Brad makes" is to say "the cases are paralleled".. nothing more.

Thoroughly dismantled? Oh yeah.. "chill on free speech", "You haven't described what she "shouldn't be discussing", just that she shouldn't. Because you say so. And because Fox "News" might put it on TV.", "Have you or would you like the first hand experience of being raped yourself. If you like I am sure that someone you know could provide it to you.", "non-existent standards (and those similarly non-existent from O'Keefe, Breitbart and Fox)"... etc.

Wow, that's a dismantling!

Drink a little koolaid, slither off to Fox, and find something else to be outraged about. That oughta help your brain

In WingnutSteve's own words:
But painting this lady as a victim is stupid. She willingly was raped. I bet she thinks twice before she starts spilling her guts to a stranger in a bar again. This woman was not "raped", and demeans the struggle real victims of that crime deal with daily by casually using the term to cover her own stupidity. Still no chill on free speech although nice try. She has the freedom to say whatever the hell she wants. But actions have consequences as she now knows.

You seem to be playing some game of your own devising where the standard rules of argument and discourse no longer apply.

I fear Bush, the media, and now the Obama administration have inserted a lot of this kind of game playing and misuse of language into the national discourse. We've come to the point where this sort of dysfunction though challenged by a few is now widely accepted. So there's plenty of what seems to me disconnected from reason and reality rhetoric to model.

For myself, I'm afraid coherent dialogue with you may not be possible.

Brad's arguments couldn't have been clearer or simpler to follow but you respond as if you don't get them at all, that he didn't say all that he just said, and that somehow magically by merely REPEATEDLY SAYING there's no chill on free speech you've won the argument.

That's not the way argument works, wingnutsteve. You have to take what is said, acknowledge the points made, and deconstruct them if you can with reason, facts, and evidence. That's what actually winning an argument would look like.

You forego all that and basically just say--NOPE, didn't get me! Like a kid in the schoolyard. With the occasional gratuitous shit sandwich thrown in for good measure.

Just one more example of the serious mistake CA Attorney General/Governor Elect Jerry Brown made when he gave O'Keefe immunity from prosecution for violation of CA PC 632 in order to obtain the original videotapes of the phony ACORN pimp hoax scam sans their deceptive alterations.

In a nation of laws, all of these right-wing con artists would be behind bars.

In today's upside down Amerika, the corporate media extols their scams as "journalism."